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Topic: T.I.-INSIDE MAN

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T.I.-INSIDE MAN

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/mar/06/ti-hip-hop-interview

Hip-hop star TI is on unbeatable form, full of reflection, revelation and 'jammin'-ass kicks'. All he has to do now is get out of prison. He talks to Alex Macpherson

'The sooner I get started, the sooner I get finished," drawls 28-year-old Clifford Harris, contemplating his destination for later this month: jail, where he is to spend a year and a day. "I was thankful when I got sentenced: this was the best-case scenario," he says. "It reminds me of what can happen if you don't think as much as you ought to."

The 16 months since his arrest for buying illegal guns in a car park in Atlanta, Georgia, have been the most successful months of Harris's life. He's not in the kind of everyday job where convictions for possession of unregistered machine guns, and possession of firearms by a convicted felon tend to put a block on one's career. He's in hip-hop, rapping under the name TI. He was arrested four hours before the Black Entertainment Television Hip-Hop awards in October 2007, at which he had been nominated for nine awards and was due to perform. After five increasingly successful albums and several acclaimed hit singles, TI's star had been very much in the ascendant. Blessed with a unique, drawling flow, chiselled good looks and a ton of charisma, he was on the brink of the transition from established hip-hop star to household name.

TI has spent much of the time since under strict house arrest - only his girlfriend and children were permitted to live with him, and all visitors were monitored.

Just over a year on from the arrest, though, not only has TI's career suffered no harm, it has gone stratospheric. He dominated the US singles chart in 2008, gaining his first two No 1s with the lilting, seductive Whatever You Like and the maddeningly catchy Live Your Life; between them, they reigned almost continuously from September to December, while their parent album, Paper Trail, scored TI his best ever first-week sales. Moreover, Live Your Life fulfilled TI's long-standing aim to crack the international market, reaching No 2 in the UK, despite his not being allowed to leave the US to promote it. He's currently No 4 in the UK, with the single Dead and Gone.

TI makes his crimes sound like casual absent-mindedness. It's not, perhaps, that simple. Why would he have taken the risks he did? After all, TI had been a teenage drug dealer and had worked tirelessly specifically to extract himself from situations in which he would fall foul of the law. The answer seems to have its roots in an incident in May 2006, in which his childhood friend and business partner Philant Johnson was shot dead in a high-speed car chase. TI, who was in the same car and saw Johnson die, would testify that "all those rounds were fired for me, in my opinion". Today, he carefully describes his decision to illegally arm himself as "self-defence against people who wanted to do me harm".

It is a subject TI addresses thoughtfully on Paper Trail. The album was mostly written while he was under house arrest, and in order to stave off the endless hours of boredom, he set himself a challenge: to return to writing his lyrics on paper, a method of composition he had not used since his debut album, 2001's I'm Serious. "It gave me a lot more thought," he says. "A lot of those songs - before, I would've settled with what I came up with at first. But I spent a lot of time reciting them back to myself, wondering if there was a better way to say something."

The decision paid off. On tracks such as Ready for Whatever, TI painstakingly tackles the thought processes that culminated in his attempting to buy guns from someone who turned out to be an informant: fear, paranoia and the mental trauma of watching Johnson die beside him are all covered, but TI picks his words with enough care that the explanations never become excuses. Elsewhere, he pays tribute to his slain partner: Paper Trail's emotional pay-off comes midway through its final track, Dead and Gone, when TI finally refers to Johnson by name for the first time on the album, turning his mourning into an epic declaration of repentance and renunciation.

Today, a mention of Johnson is the only thing that causes TI to appear ill at ease. He gazes into the distance, across the shimmering LA haze, and his voice drops to a murmur. "I miss everything about him. Everything, man. Conversation, his presence, just being a partner. You know, imagine all the things about your best friend that you'd miss. You never stop missing them."

TI swiftly resumes his noncommittal stance. For a man due to lose his freedom in a month's time, he seems extraordinarily relaxed. He admits to being "nervous and anxious, I guess", but says so as if the idea of being nervous has only just occurred to him. "Well, I am more relaxed now," he laughs. "I'm more patient. I've been very uptight at times, when things didn't go the way I wanted them to. Now, I think it could always be worse." Does he regret anything? "Why bother? They all make me who I am today. If I knew then what I know now, would I avoid them? Sure. But those things made it possible for me to know to avoid them now."

Recent events have been beneficial to TI's creative spark, he believes. Had the arrest not happened, he might have taken a hiatus from hip-hop. "I'd have done more movies, maybe taken some time off music. I'd run out of stuff to say." In his own words, great art is "expansion of vocabulary. Reflection and revelation. Organs, basses. An even flow of emotion mixed with some jammin'-ass kicks and snares"; Paper Trail provides all of those. Impressively, its weighty subject matter never bogs the album down. Even at his most apologetic, TI never quite loses his irresistible swagger.

The most important silver lining to TI's conviction, though, is the emergence of his social and political conscience. Sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service in addition to jail time, he has spent much of that time touring the country giving talks to children in "elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, juvenile centres, YMCAs, clubs, community centres ... everywhere, it feels like". Inevitably, there have been commercial opportunities, too: a reality TV show focusing on TI's last 45 days of freedom has been commissioned. That may prove there is nothing that cannot be turned into entertainment, but it promises to be somewhat more edifying than, for example, Lil' Kim's similar programme, which mostly concerned itself with her final visits to her manicurist. Entitled Road to Redemption, it follows TI's attempts to intervene in the lives of seven teenagers on the wrong side of the law.

"I got through to them with honesty and my own personal experiences. I could relate to all of them in one way or another. One of them was a young drug dealer - which I was, too. He was responsible for looking after his mother, and he wanted to see her in a better place - I once felt the same way. There was another young teenager with a girlfriend, out on their own with a child, who had to provide a living for his family - and the only way he knew how to was illegally. I was once in the same position. So I shared with them the likely outcomes. And I encouraged them, showed them there is an alternative road. For some, it was the first time they'd been shown that. I would say it was a success in all of their lives."

In the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, TI was also involved in the Respect My Vote campaign, which sought to c****at apathy and ignorance among young voters, and was subsequently honoured at the Hip-Hop Inaugural Ball for raising awareness of the election season: "That was an absolute honour. It touched me in a way that entertainment hasn't. It feels like America is growing up, and to be a part of that in any way is special."

That has not always been the case, TI admits. "Before, I wasn't at all involved. This was the first election I voted in myself. I guess it was Barack who influenced me. Politics just didn't move me. I didn't feel like it made a difference one way or the other. I looked at politicians and just thought, either way we're f**ked. They don't really care about us anyway. Now, I look at Obama's government and I feel like someone's in there who has our best interests at heart."

It would appear, then, that an all-new TI is with us: one with inner peace found and new leaves turned. Presumably, though, jealous people who want to do him harm are still out there: is it enough to avoid a repeat of this situation? How will TI choose to defend himself and his family? He leans back and rests his head on his hands. "Let God deal with it. Let my faith overwhelm my fear."

The single Dead and Gone, with Justin Timberlake, is out now on Atlantic




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